Family or Enterprise? What shapes the business structures of Australian farming?

Sally Weller; Erin F Smith; Bill Pritchard

doi:10.1080/00049182.2013.789592

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Family or Enterprise? What shapes the business structures of Australian farming?

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Family or Enterprise? What shapes the business structures of Australian farming?

Sally Weller, Erin F Smith and Bill Pritchard

Australian Geographer, Vol.44(2), pp.129-142

2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2013.789592

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Abstract

family farming

Australia

agriculture

farm ownership

structures of capital

Australian farmers navigate their contemporary circumstances through the use of different business and legal arrangements that are shaped by the commercial realities of farming and the aspirations of farm-owning households. In posing the question 'Family or Enterprise?', this paper examines the extent to which various household and farm business indicators are associated with different forms of farm ownership, namely sole proprietorships, partnerships, trusts and companies. Results from a postal survey of farm enterprises in Victoria, Australia suggest that both household and enterprise factors contribute to the business structure used, although the strongest determinants appear to bethose factors that are less well understood in the rural geographical and sociological literature: household composition, farmer age and farm size. Greater scrutiny of the business instruments deployed by farmers to manage family and enterprise pressures should inform expectations of the fate of family farming in advanced financialised economies.

Details

Title: Family or Enterprise? What shapes the business structures of Australian farming?
Authors: Sally Weller (Author) - Monash University
Erin F Smith (Author) - University of Sydney
Bill Pritchard (Author) - University of Sydney
Publication details: Australian Geographer, Vol.44(2), pp.129-142
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2013
DOI: 10.1080/00049182.2013.789592
ISSN: 0004-9182
Copyright note: Copyright © 2013 Geographical Society of New South Wales Inc. This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Australian Geographer, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00049182.2013.789592.
Organisation Unit: University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Law and Society; Sustainability Research Cluster
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99448804302621
Output Type: Journal article

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